nighttime television, rachel maddow. >> nice. this is getting better and better, this gossip from michael, i have to say. i must tell you, you having nas on is very, very cool. illmatic was absolutely formative to my dna. i would not be who i am without their record. >> i could intuit that. >> have a great weekend. and thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. honestly, i have to tell you y have been looking forward to this show for a long time. as you know, today, the new jobs report came out showing the economy added more jobs than economists expected but not enough. the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 8.3%. president obama and mitt romney gave simultaneous speeches about the economy and about the campaign shortly after the jobs report came out. the president speaking in washington, mitt romney speaking in nevada. honestly, it's not that weerdz for them to be giving split screen speeches. that's going to happen more and more over the next 95 days, as we close in on the election. but what was weird about today

is that mr. romney in nevada took questions from reporters. that basically never happens. his whole six-day trip abroad this past week with the giant entourage of american reporters going to great expense to follow him 24 hours a gai through three countries. he took precisely three questions from the traveling american press corps over that entire stretch. five minutes, three questions over six days. he really never takes questions from reporters, but today, he did. >> harry reid has said that you didn't pay taxes for ten years according to some sources he hasn't named. could you silence these remarks by disclosing more of your tax returns? >> well, harry reid really has to put up or shut up, all right? >> this is the guy who won't release his tax returns talking about his tax returns. saying somebody else needs to put up or shut up.

>> let me also say categorically, i have paid taxes every year. and a lot of taxes. a lot of taxes. so harry is simply wrong. >> instead of just going back and forth with harry reid, why not just release the tax returns, just put the issue to bed? >> actually, you can go on our website, and you can see my financial disclosure statements go back to 2002. you also can see the tax returns that i put out for 2010. go on the website. you'll be surprised to see the amazing amount of data associated with our campaign's disclosure. thank you. >> thank you. you can in fact go on the mitt romney website and look at what haze campaign has put out for his financial disclosure and they have done their best to make it look amazing. still, though, it's only the one year, the 2010 tax return. that's it. the aforementioned harry reid who is a senate minority leader and the senior senator nomnevada put out a statement today

welcoming mr. romney to his home state by calling him, quote, the most secretive presidential candidate since richard nixon. forget about president. he couldn't get confirmed as a cabinet secretary. every nominee overseen by the senate finance committee has to release more tax returns than romney is willing to release. mitt romney and harry reid are trading blows right now as if they're running against each other, which no matter what you're fighting about is never a good place to be for a presidential nominee. they call it punching down. no insult is intended to mr. reid by saying that, but romney is running for president, not senator. for him to be in a fight with a senator, anyway. the strange attack that harry reid launched on mitt romney this week has essentially become the fulcrum of all political activity in the president race now, even though it is punching down for romney to respond to it. that's where the race is right now. it started ought strangely on tuesday. senator reid gave an interview to the huffington post in which he made what seemed to be a wild

accusation. here's how it appeared in the huffington post. saying he had no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy, harry reid sad up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. a month ago, he said a person who invested with bain capital called his office. he said, he didn't pay taxes for ten years. he didn't pay taxes for ten y r years. do i know it's true? i'm not certain, said reid. but he hasn't released the tax returns. how would it look. his wealth, not a chance in the world. it's a lot more than that. you would do well sphyou don't pay taxes for ten years when you're making millions and millions of dollars. very soft spoken guy, mild mannered guy. even for somebody who is usually hyper, that is a little unhinged. an unnamed single source making a phone call to his office with a wild accusation that the senate majority leader then puts

on the record to reporters even though he admits it's just heresy and he doesn't know it's true. that's outrageous. it's weird. it rightfully got senator reid roasted by john stewart on the daily show. it seems for all the world that harry reid maybe had slipped up on this. maybe he made a careless decision to make a reckless allegation. he must not have meant it. this slipped out, he must be embarrassed. it has not played out at all that way this week. after furious denunsiations from the romney campaign, senator reid said it again. he took to the senate floor and calmly said it again, what he said to the huffington post, he reiterated it. by then, it was the romney campaign and mr. romney himself denying the allegations. >> of course, that's totally and completely wrong. it's -- it's untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. it's wrong. >> i'm telling you authoritatively speaking on behalf of the governor that the charges are untrue.

they're baseless, and there's nothing to back them up. >> after those responses from mr. romney and his campaign, harry reid put out another statement, this time in writing, reiterating what he said. this anonymous source told him about mr. romney's taxes and whipping him for not releasing more tax returns. it's understandable that this has focused on harry reid and this strange way he has made this accusation. he's saying, i'm assuming you're dirty. somebody told me you are and you must be so prove that you're not. it naks sense that people are focusing on harry reid, but there are two things from the public record of mitt romney's life as a public pauld titian that should change or inflect the way this is being discussed. the first is that if you doechblt like the way harry reid is making this accusation, if you think it's unfair or unseemly, you should at least know that mitt romney himself

has done this exact same thing that he is complaining is being done to him now. in 2002, when mitt romney was running for massachusetts governor, he would not release his tax returns. all of the candidates running on the democratic side, reich, birmingham, o'brien, they all released multiple years of tax returns. mitt romney on the republican side, would not release his. when it came time for the jerm election, you had shannon o'brien and the republican, mitt romney, who has not released his tax returns. from that position, as the guy who hasn't released his returns, mitt romney attacks shannon o'brien for her husband not releasing his tax returns. >> shannon o'brien's husband with whom i presume their share expensive, likewise, hasn't released his income taxes. >> i won't release my tax returns, but your husband must. your returns aren't good enough. i need to see your husband's

too, but no, you can't see mine? look at this reporting from april 2002. one dafr after bolalking about releasing his own tax returns, he launched this attack on o'brien, her hands aren't clean, said romney deputy campaign manager eric fehrnstrom, of o'bri o'brien's release of her tax return but not the filings of her husband. she can't claim to be disclosing anything until she discloses her husband. he went on to say, what is she hiding? this is the campaign that's not releasing anything, yelling at the campaign that has released its tax returns, what are you hiding? fast forward ten years, and now it's harry reid bellowing at mitt romney and eric fehrnstrom, what are you hiding? and mitt romney and eric fehrnstrom are whining and complaining about this horrible tactic and how awful it and the whole press is going along with them without seeing he has done the same thing.

if you go to maddowblog.com, we can't release the whole article, but we posted the date and headline and reporter and you can be enterprising and find a way to pay for it online to see for yourself that mitt romney did this exact same thing that harry reid is now doing to romney that the whole press says is so awful. i said there are two things about mr. romney's past that should redirect the current furor in the presidential campaign right now. one is that he's guilty of the exact same thing harry reid is doing. actually, even a worse variant of the same thing. that he is now whining about with all of the support in the press. but the other thing, it's more important, and actually, it's the whole largely missed but most important part of the whole mitt romney tax question which becomes crystal clear when you look at his record in massachusetts. that's mr. romney is not only refusing to release his tax returns. not just saying no to that request. he's making positive imperical claims about what is in his tax returns.

he's not just saying you can't see them. he's saying no, you can't see them and let me tell you what's in them. >> let me also say categorica y categorically, i have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes. >> my view is i have paid all the taxes required by law. i don't pay more than are legally due. >> a spokesperson would only reiterate, mitt romney has paid his taxes in full compliance with u.s. law and he has paid 100% of what he has owed. >> i obviously pay all full taxes, i'm honest in my dealings with people. people understand that. >> is there some secret? people know you're wealthy. >> i understand. >> there's nothing to hide. >> i agree, there's nothing to hide. >> these are all assertions by mitt romney himself and from his campaign dating from today all the way back to last year. that last comment to andrea mitchell was december of last year. i have nothing to hide. trust me, i have paid a lot of taxes. i have never paid zero taxes. i have paid many dollars in taxes. i have paid every dollar i'm

legally required to. i have paid 100% of what i legally owe, trust me. and this is what has been lost in this campaign furor around mr. romney's taxes and him not releasing his tax returns. that's that his response is not just, no, you can't see my taxes. his response is no, you can't see my taxes, but let me tell you what's in them. trust me. and what's important about that is that mitt romney has done this before. he did this in massachusetts in 2002. massachusetts democrats said in 2002 that mitt romney was not eligible to run for governor in the state because the state constitution says you have to have been a resident of massachusetts for seven years before you can run for governor. in trying to prove that allegation, they asserted that mr. romney's tax returns would show that he had not filed hitaxes as a massachusetts resident. they thought that should disqualify him from being able to run for governor in the state. >> we believe that mitt romney is not qualified under the massachusetts constitution to be governor because he declared

himself to be a nonresident of massachusetts. >> so for their own reasons, because they were trying to get him kicked off the ballot, massachusetts democrats asserted that mitt romney's taxes showed him declaring himself to be a non-resident of massachusetts. the romney campaign denied this. they went to reporters and denied that allegation from the democrats. romney filed his taxes as a resident of both utah and massachusetts in 1999 and 2000, and plans to do the same for 2001, said romney spokesman, eric fehrnstrom. they wouldn't release the tax returns, wouldn't show them to anyone, but they said trust me. they said trust us. the tax returns show that mitt romney filed as a massachusetts resident. that's what they said. they were lying. >> the democrats point to romney's house in utah, which was listed as his primary residence, to support a

challenge. they also want to see his tax returns. >> we have now learned from his own lips this afternoon that mr. romney lied yesterday when he said he had filed resident tax returns in both massachusetts and utah. >> romney acknowledged today he amended his 1999 and 2000 massachusetts state tax returns to make him a resident here. >> to make him a resident here retroactively. so after saying all along for months to the people of massachusetts, trust me, whei h been filing my tax returns as a massachusetts resident, it came out under pressure that was not true. he had to go back retroactively and refile as a massachusetts resident because he hadn't filed as a massachusetts resident despite what he was saying in public. he said, trust me y have, when he had not. the romney campaign had held on to that line until the very last moment. literally days before mr. romney finally had to admit, okay, no, i didn't file as a massachusetts resident, up until that week, he

and eric fehrnstrom were still saying trust us. earlier in the week, mr. romney rejected a request by the globe for copies of his returns with financial information redacted but hisrential status visible. a romney spokesman later identified by the globe as eric fehrnstrom insisted at the time that the gop candidate had filed as a massachusetts resident but told the globe reporter you're going to have to take my word for it. days later, it turns out the word is worth nothing, at least when it comes to taxes. he waw lying. ten years later, they're saying everything he has ever done in his taxes is lawful. he's never paid zero taxes. he's paid every dollar he's owed. he's paid a ton of taxes. trust us. it's a neat assertion. but it is an empirical assertion, checkable, and the people trying to vet mitt romney for president would like to be able to fact check that assertion. presumably, you guys are making that assertion because you think it has political importh. therefore, you either need to be

very trust worthy in your assertion of these things or need us check for ourselves as the american people and the press, and not only are you not letting us check for ourselves, but you have proven yourself in public life to be the opposite of trust worth y on this issue. ten years ago, you lost the benefit of the doubt on this issue. one last parallel in case you still need to be convinced we're reliving ten years ago, he's doing his tough talk thing just like he did back then. the same playbook. right now, harry reid is making his allegation that mitt romney didn't pay taxes. mitt romney is saying that's untrue. he's not just saying it's untrue, he's saying it's untrue while appearing very tough. >> well, harry reid really has to put up or shut up, all right? >> all right, put up or shut up? all right, i paid all my taxes. but again, remember, this is a rerun. here is what tough talk mitt romney being called out about his taxes looked like the first

time around. >> if the democrats want to look at my candidacy and file against me and keep me from running, go ahead. make my day. >> make my day. put up or shut up. argh. in poker, when you're bluffing or when you're under some strain of some kind, people say you have a tell. something that you maybe even subconsciously fall back on every time. mitt romney has a tell. but you have to be willing to look back to the earlier part of his time in public life to see it. hold on, wait, there's more. ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays]

♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays]

there's. more from the previous public life of mitt romney ahead right after this. >> and we have big news from the great state of michigan. a while since those words have been uttered, but tonight, it's true. big news, stay tuned. organic artichokes, organic lettuce, organic kale...

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hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. there's one more thing from mitt romney's history as a public figure that i think is being lost in the current discussions about him not releasing his tack returns. it is this, in his 1994 senate race against ted kennedy, mitt romney demanded that ted kennedy release his tax returns. quote, with the tax filing deadline looming, republican senate candidate mitt romney yesterday challenged senator edward m. kennedy to desclois his state and federal taxes to prove he has, quote, nothing to hide. it's time the biggest taxing senator in washington showed the people of massachusetts how much he pays in taxes, said romney. does this mean that mitt romney disclosed his tax returns add the same time that same year? surely he wouldn't demand the other guy release his taxes

without releasing his own. sure, he would. he said he would release his own for the last three years on the very day kennedy turned over his taxes for public scrutiny. i will release my tax returns but only when my opponent releases his. mitt romney lost to ted kennedy in the senate race. mr. romney's aponeabout, the senator, next released his tax returns so neither did romney. but when he ran for office the next time, in 2002, when he ran for massachusetts governor, his opponent in the race did release her tax returns. in fact, all of the democrats running against him released their tax returns even before they picked their democratic nominee. robert reach and shannon o'brien, they all released multiple years of their tax returns. and remember, in '94, mr. romney said if my opponent releases tax returns, i will, too, that very day. but in 2002, when his opponent released tax returns, mr. romney wouldn't do it. he wouldn't release his.

what changed? he was asked about that change in a debate that year. >> you have refused to release your income tax forms even though others, including governor william weld, u.s. senator john kerry, and your opponent, shannon o'brien, released theirs. do you have something to hide? >> i believe very deeply in my personal privacy, what little amount there is left. in this case, you made a couple exceptions from your list. senator kennedy, when i was running against him, i told him, you have to release the income tax returns of yours. and he said, no, i value my privacy. i think he was right and i wrauz wrong. as a result, i share his view on that. i'm not going to release my income tax returns, and shannon o'brien's husband, with whom i assume their share expenses, has not released his taxes. >> he is not releasing his taxes, he was wrong to demand that kennedy release his tax

returns, but now that shannon o'brien has released her tax returns, how come we're not seeing her husband's, too? weird, right, it was a weird spot. 180 degree about face on this same issue that is dogging him now in his run for the pres daenls. in 2002, the boston press did not go easy on him. they did not go easy on him the last time he made a hash of this issue in the run for governor. from the boston globe, quote, romney had made an issue of tax disclosure when he ran against kennedy, criticizing kennedy for never releasing his return. he spoke yesterday and said there was no inconsistency in the action. the offer still stands on ted, eric fehrnstrom said, we have been waiting. this is 2002. this is eight years after romney ran against ted kennedy. in a totally unrelated race. in which mitt romney was refusing to release his tax returns, but he said he would release them if senator kennedy did, too. they said the same thing to t boston herald as well.

asked ability the 1994 kennedy campaign, fehrnstrom said he will still release his returns if senator kennedy does. quote, we have been waiting eight years and the offer still stands, fehrnstrom said. eight years after the senate race? that was the only condition under which mitt romney will release his tax returns. his opponent releasing her tax returns wasn't enough. all of the democrats releasing their tax returns wasn't enough. getting caught lying about his tax returns wasn't enough, but eight years after he ran against ted kennedy for senate when he was running in a totally different race in which ted kennedy was irrelevant, a release of ted kennedy's tax returns would be the trigger for romney to release his returns? why? and if that offer still stood eight years after that election, when ted kennedy was totally irrelevant to the race he was in, does that mean the offer still stands now? we asked the romney campaign today if the offer still stands.

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you know what the 2012 season is missing? really great characters. so far, 2012 is a little personality challenged, right? fund-raising rubber chicken dinner without anybody breaking it up with a few good jokes. as opposed to 2010, which had a ton of good jokes. a year like this one is almost enough to make a person nostalgic for the array of amazing losing campaigns for the

united states senate two years ago. like for example, delaware republican i am not a witch christine o'donnell. what happened to her? we know through the magic of the internet that these days she seems to be paying for a chance to take a picture with ann romney at a romney campaign fund-raiser. look at the tweet, love the romney's. and ken buck of colorado, vote for me i don't wear high heels, mr. ban all abortions with no exception for rape or incest, he's still around, an attorney making scary videos about how he'll defend the country from you know who in black helicopters trying to take our guns away. >> we don't need foreign governments or the obama administration keeping tabs on who owns guns. >> and sharon engle who said conservatives would return to second amendment remedies to take things back. she wants you to know she never

stops fighting. here is what she tweeted today. weight leftinging to, my weekly workout routine to stay healthy and escape the obama care death panel. can we to do more? can we to do more. there is so much to do done. there's also a fascinating character on the democratic side. rev alvin green? the democratic senate nomination. got the democratic senate nomination without actively campaigning for it in an apparent and embarrassing fit of voter problems. it's unclear, but there's a graphic novel about his candidacy sitting on my night table that i'm looking forward to reading. and if you're thinking, alvin green, they don't make candidates like alvin green in 2012, turns out, yes they do. democrats in a southern state have nominated another accidental candidate while nobody was looking.

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news tonight in michigan. they ordered the financial manager law, which essentially eliminated local democracy in some parts of the state, the supreme court ordered that it has to go on the ballot this november for a citizen's repeal. wow. the high court in michigan says the people of michigan must get a vote on whether to keep that law or repeal it this november. this is republican governor rick snyder's radically expanded law under which he can decide, the state can decide your town is too broken for elected representation, and instead, they can appoint a single emergency manager with near unilateral control. that state opponeapointed oversn cancel contracts, sell off the town's assets. they can even unilaterally decide it's best to dissolve the town, ged rit of it, no matter what you wanted. democracy is not part of your deal anymore.

democracy is not the means by which michigan solves its problems wi s anymore. the state of michigan decided democracy is part of the problem. democracy needs to be put on hold, maybe you're just not fit for it. republican governor rick snyder signed the law as public act number four, as in one, two, three, four. as in as soon as he was governor and republicans had control of the legislature, they got right to this, way up there on their priority list. and right after he signed it, high started using it in benton harbor. the emergency manager there used his new power to essentially fire the entire elected city council and the elected mayor. he bothered to use his new powers to cancel a symbolic constitution week declared by the city council since the elected city council, he said, had no right to vote to have constitution week. he used his new powers to sell off benton harbor's publicly owned radio station which had

been used to criticize him. he used his new power to mistakenly sell off land that had been set aside as a small park despite the land having a sign in front of it saying it was public land. whoops on that. the emergency manager of the detroit public skooms uses his new power to shut down the katherine ferguson academy for young moms which he had not bib able to do in the old law. they got arrested as a sit-in in their school, and this saved their school from the new law. katherine ferguson academy is open. this was graduation this year. but they only just barely saved it. one newly appointed manager joked and called himself the tyrant. he does have nearly a dictator's authority. in michigan, citizens have a right to force a repeal referendum for laws they don't like. you draw up petitions. if you gather enough signatures, you can quaff to go up on a

state-wide ballot to go up or down on the vote. on the last day of february, a small group of activists turned in more than 200,000 signatures repeal the law, way more than enough to qualify to put it on the ballot. in april, they rejected the petitions. the republican members of the board said they couldn't be sure that the font size on one line of the petition was a large enough font so they threw the whole recall effort out. 200,000 peopleined to put the new law up for a vote, never mind them. ever since, the activists have been pleading their case in court, telling judges that their font was big enough. this is michigan, for reals. font size. michigan democracy is going to depend on the arcane technical definitions of the concept of a font and font families and type and the deep inner wilds of microsoft word. seriously. today, the activists won. in a split decision, the michigan supreme court ordered the board of state canvassers to

do it again. to put the signal legislation up for repeal, to put it up above the voters this november. this court ruling is news news. and it is complicated. nobody quite knows what is going to happen now. once the elections board certified the referendum which the high supreme court just ordered, that's going to freeze governor snyder's law until the november vote. think about that. that's really important. there's a dictator in charge of all these parts of michigan. it's not clear what happened to the muskegon heights school system, its not clear what happens to all of the union contracts that got rewritten in flint and pontiac and detroit. does benton harbor get its radio station back? it's not clear. yesterday, governor snyder posted a video about why michigan needs his emergency manager law. you'll see the sound and the picture are not quite synced up but you'll get the point. >> in the event we do need an emergency manager, we change the

law so they have more powers and abilities to come in, do their work, finish their work, and leave the community sooner than in the past. and i think that's a good outcome. >> you know, since governor snyder signed his new emergency manager law, none of the cities under emergency management have had the emergency manager leave. none of them have gotten their democracies back like he's promising here. but hey, it's early days. and this looks to be the first ad of the referendum campaign. remember, this waw done before the court ruling. snyder and his side are already fully in gear to try to hold on to the emergency manager law they like so much. but on the other side, the people who have been trying to repeal governor snyder's law have been working flat out the last three months to try to get the courts to intervene. so their side is three months behind in terms of the campaign, in terms of making their case to the public. a poll last week found them trailing by ten points. but they have plenty of room to work. there are more than enough undecided voters to swing the election if they can reach them in time before november. now that the supreme court says

their referendum is going on the november ballot, they are getting to work on that. joining us now is reverend david bullock, pastor of st. matthew's church. he's an advocate for repeal of the emergency manager law. thank you for your time tonight. nice to see you again. >> good to see you. thank you for having me on the show. >> i imagine you're rather ecstatic about the court ruling, the fact that michigan is going to get a chance to vote on this. do you get to start your campaign in earnest to make your campaign to the state? >> the first step is celebration. while it's a partial victory, today we realizealize that the people united can't do defieted. we were in the ring against the twin giants of difficulty and tyranny and we won a blow for democracy today. all of the volunteers in benton harbor, and flint, bishop jefferson, in detroit, the committee to stand up for democracy. the detroit branch naacp of

michigan forward, our great legal team, butch haollowell an curt sanders. today is a day where we celebrate and we believe again in the system. democracy can work even in the state of michigan. >> there's a lot of confusion now, pastor, about what happens in the places that have an emergency manager. what is radical about this law is just how much power an emergency manager has. they have so much power than essentially all other forms of government that they wipe out sort of atrophy in their presence because they have unilateral control. it's unclear now whether or not that person is still in charge if the emergency manager powers are going to be on hold until the vote happens in november. how do you see that playing out? >> it plays out differently. the general rule, though, is that once the petitions are certified, public act four is suspended, which means mike brown in flint, who was placed as an emergency manager in flint

under public act four has to cease and desist. muskegon heights, you have to cease and desist. now roy roberts in detroit probably gets reduced from pa 4 to pa 72 but it's good news because he had unilateral power over finance and academics and was proposing to put 62 pupils in each class. joe harris in benton harbor gets downgraded again. and so now we can begin to make the case that p.a. four suspended and those who were put in under p.a. four have to go. those who get reduced to public act 72 should at this point have fijsed their work and indeed have to go as well. governor snyder himself has said that the emergency manager program is supposed to be tempora temporary. if it's supposed to be temporary, let us see what that looks like. they have to go. they have not used their powers to help expand economic opportunities. in fact, there are no jobs.

police and fire are cut. classroom size expanded beyond any teacher's ability to teach students. and so this public policy does not work. we're going to vote this thing off of the charts. public act four will no longer be in play in the state of michigan. and emergency management will no longer be a reality in the state. >> i hear your passion in making the case. i have heard you make it in other fora as well and you're not just passionate about it, you're an effective advocate for the side of it, but a new poll shows the repeal effort trailing by ten points. is that because your side in favor of repeal has been tied up doing other work, trying to get the courts to intervene? do you think you'll be able to move the poll numbers in time for november? >> indeed. we were tied down bipartisan politics, by politics tied to the pocket book, but finally the michigan supreme court has stood with the people's right to decide to protect democracy. and so we mobileize after we

celebrate tonight, we have a meeting in the morning at 9:30 in the morning. we're planning on august 25th for a major march and mobilization. we're going to mobilize over 2,000 volunteers in a state-wide political education and mobilization campaign. we're going to win this thing. there's so much wind in our sails, we believe that we can fly. and we're going to get it done in michigan. >> reverend david bullock, pastor of st. matthew's church, i'm not in the business of giving political advice on things like that, but that statistic you dropped talking to me, 61 pupils per class, if you put one statistic on a placard for that march, i would suggest that one. anywhere anyone sees a picture of that, you're going to drop jaws all over the country, sir. >> that's right, indeed. and we've got other stats. we've got the stats about 1400 lights being taken out of the city of highland park, stats about police and fire being cut,

we've got stats about public safety not being invested in. so we're going to mobilize around what we know to be the truth. emergency managers don't work in michigan. public act four destroys democracy, it takes your voice and your vote away. so we march and mobilize on august 25th for a state-wide movement to resurrect democracy. >> david bullock, thank you, sir. we have a cocktail moment ahead. deserved, right? >> and the state of tennessee has a truly unexpected gift for the nation this election year. that's coming up next. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world.

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an american part zn politics, the two parties are coping with something called the orphan state problem. it has nothing to do with orphans. it has to do when the states get taken over entirely by one of the two parties. it's what happens when you compound the problem of the people of the state consistently voting all democratic or all republican. you compound that with the fact that the weaker of the two parties is not just weak. they're a disaster. it's one thing to be an underdog party like the republicans in new jersey. it's another thing entirely to be the republicans in california. or new york. republicans who look less like a party and more like a crime

scene. they're just a wreck. totally incapable of just basic party functions. in states where one party is not just stronger than the other, but the weak party has withered and died, it's hard to figure out a future for the dead, withered, weak party in the two-party party. they get no attention no, support nationally because everybody at national head quarries thinks they're a lost cause. so they don't get any resources. also, though, necessity tends to be the mother of invention. so in a dead party like that, anything can happen. you can get out of the box thinking. on i an good day, an that can mean creative innovation. on a bad day, you can see a party jump off the kook end. did you know there was a primary in tennessee yesterday? >> he democrats in tennessee got to pick their senate candidate who would run against senator bob cork ker, republican. this was not a race to be dog catcher, to head up the mur frees bro department of weights and measures, but the united

states senate in washington, d.c. there was a democratic primary in red, red, red, red tennessee and the guy commonly described as the anti-guy conspiracy theorist won the senate race. america, meet your new democratic u.s. senate nominee, tennessee democrats picked a guy who says he is against the north american union. in case you lay awake nights worrying about the impending merger of canada and mexico neef americanamexico. he's against that. he warns those who is disagrees with americaing will find themselves nervous one of fema's prison camps. there are no phi fema prison camps. this new democratic u.s. senate candidate is also the vice president of a super dooper anti-gay organization with this crazy website. i will save you from the

indignity of that. but not only did this anti-gay conspiracy theorist win the democratic u.s. senate primary in tennessee, he won by a lot. mark clayton got 30% of the vote in a field of seven candidates. and within a day of doing that, the actual democratic party disavowed him because of his association with the anti-gay thing he helps run which has, after all, been labeled an american hate group. the real democratic party is urging real democrats in tennessee to instead write someone in. write in the name of any other candidate when you vote this november. doesn't matter whose name you write in, anybody but the conspiracy theorist will do. this is the volunteer state. won't somebody please step forward and save the tennessee democrats from the guy here to save us from the gays and our impending merger into american cananamexico. [ female announcer ] with swiffer wet

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this summer, the rachel maddow's staff was introduced to something called lakrisal, a swedish licorice delicacy. she introduced it to us as if it was candy. ha. we tried it, and it tasted flipping awful. bitter in an extremely salty way, like a gag antorium in the office when everybody tried it. so then naturally we wanted to know why it's like that. we went to the chemist who we keep on retainer around here to investigate the three main greens in lakrisol. lish rish, ammonium chloride and sugar. we asked him to tell us why it was so freaking bitter. we tested its acidy in a not very scientific lab experiment

in our office kitchen and came up with a level for lakrisol of ph 5.92. that's somewhere between urine and coffee on the ph scale. this stuff is amazing. when chris came on the show last month, we found out weirdly he feeds one of the ingredients, the ammonium chloride to his goats. also he agreed to personally tried it on camera in our green room. he was a really good sport about it. i think he liked. today weigh tried to make our own lakrisol and it tasted awful but very much like the real thing. it's incredible how so few ingredients can make such a terrible, terrible flavor that apparently swedish people and goats enjoy. we have not been able to figure out why it tastes so awful to us. excuse me. ah.

scientists -- spoke with said it's basically a lot of scientific mystery. could be the ionic battery like taste of ammonium chloride, the combination of the three ingredients turning into some weird new taste or it could be a matter of us not beinging scandinavian. it has been awesome to try to figure out why this horrible thing exists in the world and what it is. in honor of the remarkable taste that is larisol, we are having a cocktail moment to honor the licorice flavor that is in it, but to also wash it away with delicious -- this is the obit tritt cocktail apparently because it makes you want to die but also because it's a variation on a martini that uses and absinthe which is a licorice flavored drink. i learned this from boston. it's a clack and very good. a variation on the martini that

uses absinthe. it's 2 1/4 -- i'm making two. 2 1/4 ounces of quinn. it's a half an ounce of dry vermouth, which is the white one, and then it is a quarter ounce of absinthe. we're using this great st. george absinthe. and then you essentially just prepare it the way you would with a martini. what did you learn wrong from james bond? in fact it, martinis should be stirred and not shaken. you don't need to -- you don't need to shake anything that doesn't have fruit juice or cream or an egg white that's hard to emulsify in it. if it's just liquor like this one, you can just stir it. you're trying to not make the ice make too much noise which i just did. that's enough to make two obituary